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There are few times really that Gillian sits down to draw. Usually she just doodles, very little else. Not that it has become uncommon for her to pull out a notebook or sketchbook, but usually she's writing things down rather than full blown drawking. This time, she's brought out a bunch of colored pencils, recently bought the last time she was out, and has pulled out a worn and well used notebook. One that doesn't actually belong to her. The person who gave it to her for holding said she could do anything she wanted with it, and she needed the paper. It's about the right size, too.

There's no words from her as she slaves over it, biting her lower lip and grabbing another color. Something to be said about drawing from memory, especially amazing memory. Helps that she actually can draw— more or less.

Though she draws with determination, her eyes stay dark, rather than going white, so it's unlikely she picked up an ability like he would have had before. This could be a regular drawing, right? Not so much.

Finally, she puts down one of the pencils and studies it for a few seconds, before lifting it up and speaking outloud after so much silence. "I went to see Eve."

Gabriel is standing by the window as if like a kid waiting for the rain to pass so he might go outside and play. One large hand even presses against the cool glass, eyes tracking the way rivulets of water flow down around his hand and make faint, wobbling shadows as light bends through droplets.

Rain's never stopped him before. It's not that that's keeping him inside.

He turns to look over his shoulder at Gillian at her abrupt words, brow furrowed in curiousity at the disturbance of peace. It's a warm but wet spring, and his tattoo is revealed, the sleeves of his sweater rolled up. Cuts and minor bruises, having seemed to breed tenfold since not so long ago, litter his face, hands, arms. His back looks like a warzone beneath the sweater. But shallow and insignificant, barely any needed actual treatment.

Not all wounds are designed to leave visible marks. He's been quiet lately. "You went to see Eve or did Eve go to see you?" he asks, voice dull but vaguely amused. "I can never tell."

The quiet is something they share in, even if she doesn't carry marks beyond the one she put on her own body. Even the tan she briefly acquired has had time to vanish thanks to the cloud cover and extended time indoors.

"I went to see her— I think. Though now that you mention it, bet she was waiting for me," Gillian says, frowning thoughtly the more that her mind passes over the subject. Standing from her seat, she reaches up to push back her bangs, bangs that have grown to fall well into her eyes once again. He's not the only one in need of a haircut, unless she's intending to grow them out.

Eyes settle on his tattoo for a moment, before she crosses the distance to get closer to the window, glancing past him to look outside. There are a lot of reasons for her to stay indoors right now. Avoiding the acquisition of more abilities is one of them.

"I was hoping she'd dreamed of Tyler Case, or John, or whatever, and that maybe she could point us in the right direction. Or maybe I could pick up her ability and get the info myself… But she's not dreaming of the power switching bastard…" There's a hesitant pause. "She told me she often draws after she dreams of something, to try and get it down, I guess. I didn't dream this, but— she showed me a drawing and I tried to remake it." Turning the notebook, she shows it.

Ruined buildings, the streets of Midtown. A lone figure standing on a hill, long hair and dress, looking vaguely like Eve's own profile. A full moon, a wolf's shape with vaguely human shadow reaching out for her. A huge black bird with a dark beak above it, feathers falling all around. Where each of the feathers touch, an orange-red mushroom cloud can be seen.

"She also said she heard Kazimir's voice in the dream. Telling her that the past is prologue."

It's a detailed picture, but confused in a way, and Gabriel's eyes glance over it with scanty interest— until thet keyword makes all the pieces slam together into one horrifying image. It doesn't show on his face, not at first, until his hand is going out to steal the notepad from her to study.

Impossible. But—

"Vanguard," he murmurs, eyes going from bird, to wolf, to the destruction these symbols are creating. A glance up towards her, before his gaze is tracking down to the wolf shape once more, uncertain. "Kazimir's dead. It— the voice has to stand in for something else. Or he's the prologue." Of course, who can judge when demons are dead? Uncertainty lances through his voice.

A moment later, a hesitation, before he's letting her take back the notepad. "What did she say about it? What did she think?"

There's no real defense against him stealing it away. Gillian can still be caught by surprise, and she loosens her hands when he grabs it so as not to hurt the notebook. Only when he's spoken and seems ready to relinquish it does she take it back, biting her lower lip a little as she watches his eyes. Vanguard had never been a much discussed topic, even when he got his memory back. Most of what she knew of it and his involvment came from Phoenix and even then…

"Eve doesn't think it's literal. She thinks it means that someone's going to take up where he left off. Abby's ability was supposed to fucking kill him for good, right? That was the plan. Knock him out of you, and then… supercharge Abby so she could heal him to dust."

The night isn't remembered nearly as vividly as some things, but that night in particular is difficult to forget. Pieces stand out more than most things. "I don't know," she does say. "And you would think that the people who came from the future would've brought up if something like this had happened."

"Maybe. Ten years is a long time to forget things."

He leans a shoulder against the frame of the window, brown eyes seeming brighter under hazy sunlight as he looks out towards the abandoned derelict Queens street. "Besides, they seem more focused on Edward Ray and his little helpers than trying to prevent anything, except perhaps Pinehearst. Maybe it's changed already. Maybe they didn't dig enough."

Lots of maybes, especially for Gabriel. "There's a man who used to run with the Vanguard, but thought, in the end, that Kazimir was a lunatic. He wants to pick up where he left off, in chasing down the bad guys. I don't know if this— is what he had in mind, but it's the last I've heard of any of them even contemplating something like it."

"I think Ray's lot — if you could call them that— some of them, just care about securing their own fucking freedom in the future," Gillian says, thinking back on a alley way encounter. Not something she seems to be against, even if there are details mentioned in that alley she's not about to bring up. "But they do think stopping Pinehearst— and even me helping them— can somehow fix this problem. I guess. I can't even begin to figure out what goes on inside Dr. Ray's twisted little bug-eyed head." There's little she likes about the man, it sounds like.

It really is a lot of mabyes, and they aren't well liked. Even with new information. "Bad guys…" She finally adds with a shake of her head. "I don't even know exactly what— " There's a pointed pause, as if she's choosing her words.

"What Vanguard thought it was fighting for, what did they even consider to be the 'bad guys'? Far as I knew, the boss wanted to be you and to wipe out most of mankind, which is lunacy at it's fucking finest. I can't imagine that was his sales pitch when he recruited, considering how a handful of you turned on him at the end."

As Gillian starts on her carefully crafted talk of the Vanguard, Gabriel's gaze drops from hers and he moves from the window, arms coming to cross over his chest and not because he doesn't want to be near her, but because the urge to move is overwhelming. His pacing across the room is lazy and wolfish, and bored and cagey at the same time.

"It was simple, for most of them. Vanguard was recruiting before the explosion, the explosion is just what brought them here. The promise was to free the world of dangerous men and women with Evolved ability. I would have been a primary target, but Kazimir had other plans."

Obviously. "What he promised me was a never ending supply of abilities, for as long as I worked with them. The day I didn't would be the day they tried to put me down." By his tone of voice, it doesn't sound like he ever considered that to be a threat. His own ambition was enough. "Some of them— the ones we never knew about, after the New York sect was abandoned— wanted to eradicate the world just like Kazimir wanted. But many— "

He shakes his head, looking towards her again. "Many only wanted to protect the world in the most ruthless, efficient way they knew how. It's not heroism, but it's not lunacy at its fucking finest. I was just in for— " Himself. He doesn't say it, just shrugs once.

In some ways, what he says hits Gillian fairly hard. Good thing he can't hear her heartbeat anymore. Moving away from him, she settles back down into the seat she abandoned, closing the notebook with many pages and letting it rest in her lap. "Doesn't sound much different from the people who want to lock up all the 'dangerous' Evolved and throw away the key— though I guess death is more merciful."

Her sister wasn't dangerous. What was she going to do, splash on someone? The worst she could have done is drowning, and she doesn't think she had it in her— no, from the sound of it— all Jenny had been was payment. For services rendered.

There are some things she can't say outloud, but the sudden tension in her shoulders are evident, the tightness in her voice.

There's a question she's wanted to ask since… she found out what was going on. "Do you even know… what the fuck they wanted with me? Or was I just…" Payment.

"Death is more certain," Gabriel corrects at a quiet mutter, still at that meandering, circling pace, and casts her an analytical look, hesitation both in speech and in step. "I don't know what they wanted with you. Your power, what you could do— it serves purposes. But there were deals, and I wouldn't let them use you. Not unless I knew."

It's probably a good thing, that she never finished that sentence, and he didn't chase after it, dismissing it as useless words that trailed into nothing. "And they never did."

That he'd protected her filters through rather well, at least. Gillian's troubled expression lightens quite a bit, and she even smiles faintly for a moment, a set of dimples appearing on her cheeks. They aren't as deep as they sometimes are, cause her smile isn't wide, but they're well enough. "And you were already going to leave with me…" she says in a quiet rasp, taking in a slow breath. Killed her sister. Who never hurt anyone. Who wasn't a dangerous Evolved. Who wouldn't have been locked up at all, cause she had come forward…

The dark thoughts can't fully be stopped, but she shifts the notebook onto the couch and stands again, so she can face him, move to intercept his pace. "I have a feeling… whatever they'd had planned for me would have been pretty bad. So…" She doesn't outright say thanks, but it seems to be there in her words, in her smile. In her eyes. "Whatever it is that Eve dreamed of— I'm sure that we can stop it if it's really as bad as it looks…" Multiple mushroom clouds looks pretty bad. "Or we can just hope it wasn't literal."

Gabriel's pacing effectively intercepted, he keeps his arms folded loosely as he comes to a halt, listening and unable to pick up on the subtle hearing-nuances that might indicate she's thinking darker things. No, he has her words, and he considers these instead. "If there's something to be stopped. Like I told Helena and Catherine, I'm not one for saving the world at the moment. The good news is— " A quirk of an ironic smile. "They know about as much as we do. The one who remembers everything says we're still in the data collecting phase of things."

"I know you're not up for saving the world now," Gillian stresses, though the fact she puts a time stamp must mean she thinks he's been capable of it, and will be again. "I can't even promise I'm up to it, cause half my shit doesn't work even when I want it to." Stupid powers. "But once we get out of this stupid 'data gathering' stage… we'll just have to actually fucking fix things, right?" Cat and Helena aren't on the top of her 'to visit' list right now, though she knows she'll have to do it again eventually… Especially if she wants to figure out how to turn off the rain. "I'll try to sleep extra hours— maybe I'll get a clue or two." Or maybe she'll never want to sleep again. Who knows how bad prophetic dreams will be on her.

Now, no, he isn't. As for ever saving the world again— it never gets him very far. Which is probably the point of a hero, but— he was never really a fan. "Alright," Gabriel says, and spares a glance for the raining window, hesitation in his stance before he says, "I'll be back when you wake up." Buildings to search, cities to roam. Someone has to do this the old fashioned way.

"Just be careful. You've already got enough scrapes," Gillian says, a hint of 'mothering' in her voice, but also genuine concern. She's sure he still has the horse tranquilizer that he can use if he happens to get lucky and come across the red lightning guy. She reaches to touch his arm once, a brief sign of affection, before she retrieves the notebook and walks into the bedroom. At least she's not attempting to stop him from going out, or asking to tag along. She'll just go take a long nap and pray for useful dreams.